


Fireflies And Flamethrowers

by QueasyBuddy



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: "Why is Koh here?", :), Angst, Animal Traits, Azula has the danger, Birth Defects, Cannibalism, Child Abuse, Dehumanization, Dragon Azula (Avatar), Dragon Zuko (Avatar), Fairy Tale Elements, Gen, Growing Up Together, I mean. what i'm boutta do to ozai is, Mostly in thoughts - Freeform, No ao3 tag system this isn't birthday sex, Oh shit is this animal abuse?, Scaled Over Inspired, Zuko has the noodle, it's a fucking abomination, oh this is going to get WEIRD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-13 01:54:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29643999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueasyBuddy/pseuds/QueasyBuddy
Summary: {May he have the glory he desires, whispers the world.May the earth tremble with his steps, afraid of what he will take next.May he have his whims, for a time.And may the blood-red sun know revenge is coming. }ORUnder the red sun's furious glare, Prince Ozai denies the dragon's blessing, takes no pity of the abominable things before his eyes.It all falls apart from there.
Relationships: AND LALA, Aang & Katara & Sokka & Zuko (Avatar), Azula & Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 37





	Fireflies And Flamethrowers

**Author's Note:**

> OKAY SO- this story is. difficult.
> 
> Originally, it was supposed to be my take on the scaled salvage au, but well. it aint fitting that well.
> 
> i rewrote this six (6) times up to this point, and if this disappears tomorrow, i'm rewriting it AGAIN.
> 
> i physically refuse to give up, uwu
> 
> and yes, i am reusing the same prompt twice, for i have fresh ideas and i have enough motor skills left to be able to write this down
> 
> what are you gonna do, stop me?

  
  
  


That night, the red sun sets by a temple once-his, screaming and yowling in agony, felt with each drop of the cooling blood.

A carnificine made in Agni’s name, the power running through his countless spines, his rays of burning light.

But the blood of his children is what he was forced to drink, the flesh of his blessed people the feast they’d greeted him with.

Oh, how many names they had given him!

Called by Agni and by Coraci, and summoned upon his people’s enemies as a bringer of fate, a hand of justice.

Once upon a time, the red sun had found it amusing.

But now, the scales were cooling down, the cauterized wounds yet to become a home to rot.

The first of his creations, his proudest creatures, had once set skies ablaze, made gray soot rain over charred carcasses.

And now, they were gone, killed by their own blessing.

The red sun set, his light nonetheless becoming a bloodied halo.

The corpses of his dragons, covered in a thin blanket of red.

A self-announced victor, emerging from a battle against the things that had once given their power and knowledge to him.

Prince Ozai’s triumphant laughter fills the air, as he wipes a dragon’s blood from his filthy hands.

May he have the glory he desires, whispers the world.

May the earth tremble with his steps, afraid of what he will take next.

May he have his whims, for a time.

And may the blood-red sun know revenge is coming.

For the prince-turned-prey is soon to be a father.

And he will learn that the dragons were not meant to be gone for long.

May he know, deep down in his bones, that all that comes is his fault and his fault only.

  
  
  
  


-

  
  
  


Months drift by, the glory fits his shoulders like a well-deserved cape.

His fresh scars gawked at, his smile hungrier than the beast that tried ripping it from his face.

Nonetheless, every time the sun rises, Ozai wakes up overtaken by a feeling that something in the world’s order is broken.

A piece is missing.

He smiles through it, boasts his victory and shows off the perfection of his soon-to-be family.

Like a child, he plays pretend whenever he sees his wife. 

It is a game, touching her belly and pushing back the overwhelming urge to burn away.

Burn what?, he thinks to himself.

The answer is all of it.

And so, he lets his training take the forefront of his existence, through every moment of his day.

When he moves, his mind is emptied of the overwhelming despair, of the sight of something ugly, something wrong, just below the surface.

As long as there is kindling to burn through, Ozai has the certainty of his power, his flame still ignited inside him.

When he is burning, there is no overwhelming wrongness.

Not while the sun is setting red, watching his dancing flame as he runs through the dummies, brings them back to the ashes.

His eyes are closed, and he can feel his heartbeat thumping inside his ears, pulsating warmth all through his body.

And then-

  
  


“PRINCE OZAI!”

The calling snaps him back, forces him into his body once more.

Sweat and short breaths, the thrill of a nonexistent victory collapsing into a pit in his stomach.

His head turns to the servant, a rabbit-mouse like any other, in his eyes.

“Prince- Prince Ozai, sir!” he starts, stops. Collapses onto his knees. “Your wife has entered l-labor.”

The flames have left trails of warmth no longer there in his hands.

And Ozai can feel it.

Like fire ants crawling under his skin, like bugs buzzing in his head.

The wrongness turns into anger.

Anger has birthed it all, and anger will end it all.

“And, how exactly does that concern me?” he asks.

Dragon-slayers have better things to concern themselves with, way better than watching their women bleed out.

“Please follow me.” the servant boy says, with a step back. “The sage wants you to see it. Them.”

Them…

“Them?” intrigue raises his hand, opens his mouth to let out a question to his inferior.

“They- We think there are twins.”

Their palace is a vulture’s nest, and only the strong hatchlings shall remain.

Ozai follows the boy, never lets his trembling legs wander too far, through a thousand red hallways, thin paper walls letting out whispers.

Words that dare not be missed.

“Did you hear?”

But to what, a part of his brain, stupid and vulnerable, begs to stop and ask them.

“Did you hear?” 

It echoes like a chorus on his mind.

What have they heard of, that Ozai hasn’t?

“Did you hear?”

And, through the verses, it breaks out.

“What will the Lord do about it?”

He will do more than it concerns those rats.

Even though he breathes deep and refuses to sink his shoulders, his heart keeps on thundering, way beyond the control of his mind.

Through the windows, the sky is orange and yellow, burning with Agni’s incessant flame.

The red sun stares at him, a mockery of an eye, challenging him to stare straight into his inevitable fate.

No light streams in anymore, and the rooms are increasingly cold.

The golden dragons engraved onto each and every pillar stare down on his face, glinting yet rusted.

A part of him can’t remember them ever facing that direction.

He shivers and smiles.

The last of those abominations died on his hands, and no more will come.

Nonetheless, their pupil-less eyes never truly go away, leave Ozai with nothing but the feeling of dry throats and minds torn open.

His victory is no farse, he reminds himself.

For he has all the titles, and he is the heir-to-be, and no dead snakes can steal that from him.

The room.

The red, the window to the sunset.

A blind eye that refuses to close, red and angry against his wife’s cries, against the whimpering of something.

“Where are they?” he asks, breaking through the barrier of wordlessness.

Ursa holds nothing.

The world seems cold.

The whimpering, he can hear it from every corner.

“They’re twins, my lord.” is a whisper, breaking through the air.

Nonetheless, hidden.

“May I see my children?” warmth rushes to his hands, harshness woven into his barely-disguised orders.

Ozai knows they can all see it, the way he could sweep them away like any other breeze.

Blow them into the air, breathe in the scent of burnt-in peace.

The room goes cold, as a nurse nods.

“I’m- We aren’t sure they will make it through the night, prince Ozai.”

“Then may the weak be weeded out.” he says. “I want to meet them nonetheless.”

He is guided to the crib.

His hands are jittery, the feeling of wrongness permeating the room.

The smell of blood and birth, the smell of something overstaying its welcome.

The closer he gets to his children’s resting spot, the more he smells living rot.

He can see the held-back tension in the servant girl’s shoulders, the respect he’s well-earned.

Ozai can’t peek into the crib, can only accept the bundle reached out to him.

A bunch of red fabric, the color angry against the child’s small, wrinkled face.

He could sweep them away like a breeze.

“A beautiful little girl.” says the girl, forced fond relaxation permeating every word, as she reaches out to touch the child.

“I am not blind.” he hisses, slaps her hand away.

A fire-hot grip, a smack so she may know what will lay in store for her lack of discipline.

He and his Ursa shall choose a name for the child, if she is to survive the first night.

She stirs in his grasp.

The whimpering continues, still from the crib.

His wife should’ve held her children.

Ozai should fix her into a decent mother.

“I had been told they were twins.” his words near a hiss.

The bundled-up child only wakes up when Ozai hands her away, gives out the worthless treasure to a servant that knows better than to meet his face.

Teary-eyed nods, before the world seems to stop once more.

Ozai suddenly chokes.

The world is full of smoke, and it is like he can’t breathe.

Its too long neck, the slim, serpentine body and the twitching, short limbs.

‘What is this thing?!” he asks.

His voice comes out desperate, as he snags it from the crib.

A tail wags.

Oh, Agni.

The red sun is setting outside.

The birds are laughing, the world is thriving through the drought.

The monster has Ozai’s face, and a dragon’s twisted body.

  
  
  
  


-

  
  
  


Ursa has a boy.

Ursa’s boy holds a name nowhere but in her mind.

A little piece of sun, wrapped in a body tiny and twisted, weakly whimpering.

To her, he is a figment of the fire itself.

Held only by her, the tiniest sun.

Emmanating a gentle warmth that lulls her into a trance, almost a little creation of her mind.

Brittle yet gentle, his skin clear as porcelain, wrinkling as he folds his body, unnatural and inhuman.

Even if all seems to hurt him, Ursa smiles on and takes him into her hands.

They are all waiting for the child to no longer be adorable, no longer be something she can hold.

Ursa knows.

Ursa will make her adoration last for as long as possible, knowing her child also likes her.

His golden eyes wrinkle with a smile, and his tail wags.

A mother’s loyalty shall go both ways, while her child is not much more than a dog.

“Hello, Zuko.” she whispers to him, every time.

The cell is disguised as a temple, the crib not much more than a cage.

Red statues and golden dragons, and red tile floors nonetheless stained with uncared-for blood.

Her child purrs.

The flames engraved on the walls seem to burn brighter.

“How have you been, my little snake?” she sits down beside his cradle, ignores the thinly-veiled stares, given to her through guard masks.

They fall upon her shoulders like a well-worn cape, like the cloak of an Agni Kai fighter.

And her love, unnatural but blessed, burns brighter than anything she could find glinting in the glares, and, when she holds her child, her heart is as warm as the blood-red sun.

  
  
  
  
  


-

  
  
  


Ozai reminds himself, as he holds her.

He only has one child.

He has only one thing to concern himself with, is what he means.

She has fuzzy black hair and she has warm hands and her smile is a comforting reminder that no good thing lasts for long.

The sun is gone, and, even though he is weaker, he is comforted by the presence of his family.

A bedpost comfortable enough for him to lean upon it, Ursa sleeping heavy by his side.

Ozai raises his little Azula in ways he doesn’t think her mother could.

For, despite her perfect normalcy, her clearly visible humanity, the woman dares not touch their child.

A little hand grasps his finger, and he sighs.

So small.

It won’t last for long, it won’t be able to live without discipline for any longer.

“Your claws are long again, little Azula.” he mutters, tsk-s softly.

It is not her fault.

Nonetheless, he is able to straighten up, the red sun no longer beaming down upon his shames.

Leaving him to get up, hold his child close, and leave the room in perfect silence.

His daughter needs to be declawed once more.

  
  
  


-

  
  
  
  
  
  


Over the screaming, Ursa can hardly hear her own sigh.

She closes her eyes, wipes away the thoughts, beading up into sweat on her temples.

Azula seems to have returned to her roots, endless screaming.

Her daughter is named, but neither the name nor the face truly connect in her mind.

She does not trust the child, for she does not purr nor does she cry.

She only screams.

Shouting, loud, sharp and angry.

Piercing her ears, into her head, trampling every thought in Ursa’s mind.

She fists her hands beside her, breathes in.

Even before she turns to look at the screaming child, she smells smoke.

This time, however, the mean little sound, comes along with something else.

The smell of smoke.

Gray plumes, and a sharp gasp.

Ursa has been in hell for two years, her true child locked away and the barely-disguised monster’s neck just out of her twisting reach.

And now, the child has set a teddy bear ablaze.

It is still in her grasp, even as the flames lick it bright red.

Clawed hands shaking it around, the talons ripped off more times than anyone could count, yet still coming back.

Strong, disproportionately large compared to her dainty little hands.

Azula laughs, claps at the burning, surrounding her on the floor even as she refuses to be part of the kindling.

Ursa resists the urge to slap the child, for that is her husband’s place to act.

Her own words slip away from her ears, her heavy back and her sore arms picking up the child, who does not cry and does not purr and does not growl.

For she can’t help the fact that she doesn’t quite care.

  
  


-

  
  
  
  
  


They call upon his name, beg for his mercy even if only inside their pitiful little heads.

But the red sun gives in to neither praise nor prayer.

His drought persists, blazes onward.

Under the sight of his eye, red up in the sky, no rain will gather and no grain will grow.

They are living, and they are burning.

He won’t let his light be dimmed down, snuffed out once more.

The people are falling ill.

They keep on praying, though, keep putting a smile to a thing with no face.

Heat strokes and blotches, growing on unpleasant peasants and noble benders alike.

The more they burn, the more they give him.

But faith is fear, and the despair tastes incredible.

The red sun has no reason to spare anyone.

He likes watching the fools.

  
  
  


-

  
  
  


Through the mask, her eyes focus on the unnamed child.

A prince only by blood, a human only by face.

In Jiro’s mind, he is nothing but a child.

Ugly and uncanny, but children are never meant to be anything other than that, to her.

The temple to Agni is underground, and her counterproductive offering is a greeting to the only inhabitant of the place.

“Hey, eel boy.” she greets him, serving as guard and maid alike.

Smiling behind the skull mask, even though the child may not even know that isn’t her face.

Three years old, long and inhuman, clapping taloned hands.

His smile wrinkles the corners of his eyes, show a mouthful of tiny teeth, already needle-sharp.

“Agni’s fucking panties.” she feels the other guard for the day shudder beside her. 

She had noticed it the first time he bit her, the fact that he had two rows of shark-like fangs.

“Ji-ji!” he yaps her name.

His breath, even from afar, smells like leftover food, charred and corrupted by the incense they’d burnt in the shrine that morning.

It doesn’t quite break the illusion of self-imposed normalcy, the way he purrs when she gets close.

Jiro wasn’t supposed to come close, but rules don’t apply to the brave.

The boy cocks his head at her, when she puts a bowl in front of the shrine.

Incense and plain jook fill the air, as the child who never earned a name climbs onto her lap.

Jiro is resigned to praying on her knees for the rest of the day, when another skull-faced guard interrupts.

“Princess Ursa is visiting today.” her fellow guard says, as she scratches the boy’s head.

“Good.” she says, as a tail wags in excitement. “Hopefully, our little eel won’t have a big, big fight today.”

He shudders.

“Put it down, dude.” he says, his words muttered through gritted teeth, breaths muffled by the mask. “Seriously, who knows what it’s gonna do?”

“It is a baby. A child. A toddling, small baby dwarf of a child.” the so-called toddling small baby dwarf of a child purrs in her grasp, wiggles a bit.

She grips it tighter.

“It has no name for a reason, you know.”

“Princess Ursa calls it a Zuko.” she argues back.

The baby claps, like it somehow knows its name.

Maybe Jiro should, too, she thinks.

_ (A part of her wants him to see the sun, red and glorious, by the end of every shift.) _

  
  
  
  


-

  
  
  
  


She isn’t a big girl - not yet, even if she is aware of where she fails - but she is big enough to know that being watched is not the same as being seen.

Azula wants Mom to see her.

Azula is always watched, always falling prey to side-eyes and glares and fearful little glances.

Every movement is a flinch, either from her or whoever sits across from her in the tea room.

She wants to be seen, met with adoration and not fear.

Look at how human she is, she wants to shout out.

How extraordinarily unlike the animal they think her to be!

But nobody hears, because Azula’s mouth dares not let the words out.

So, she stays quiet.

Drowns in the faint hopes of being seen.

Seen as human, even if declawed and wearing fake teeth.

Congratulated with a voice unlike what you’d use for an animal, and disciplined with words and not fire.

But, if she can’t be seen, she will make sure she isn’t being watched.

That’s why, with quiet steps and a sneaky heart, she slips out of her bedroom in the middle of the night.

She opens her mouth, tastes the air with a burnt tongue.

Smoke and the training’s fire, oil lamps and, the closer she gets to the garden, the more she can smell crumbly, toasted bread.

She likes the garden.

Turtle-ducks are tasty, even when people catch her eating them and she has to share her catches with the servants.

_ (She knows they’re throwing out her catches, of course. She can smell it in their breaths, feel it in the way the warmth in them pulses.) _

But nonetheless, there is the smell of stale bread in the air, and of flowery perfume and of people.

Of the person.

Unattainable, beautiful, colder than the shadows of the night.

Tinted blue in the moonlight, breathing out and pretending she can’t hear Azula.

“Mom?” she asks. “ _Mom_!”

No heads turning, no attention paid.

She simply stays there, the forced stillness of a statue, broken only by breaths and lukewarm blood.

Every call is a bit closer to breaking through the barrier, every appealing little gesture is a bit closer to being seen.

She hopes for it, even through the non-reaction Mother gives her, invariably and with no fail.

Azula thinks that, if Mother will let her play with the ducks, maybe she can give her a feather necklace.

Favors for favors and flavors.

She licks her lips, runs to her mother’s side.

In the silence of the night, the only warmth is Princess Ursa, cold-eyed and impatient.

“Are you feeding the duckies?” she asks, deliberately tilting her head to the side.

“Aham, Azula.” comes off as barely a mutter.

No eye contact.

“I can keep you safe!” she says, puffs out her cheeks. “You can tell me a story, can’t you?”

There are flames inside her throat, and she is ready to protect and to do everything in the book and out of it for her Princess!

But Mom just sighs again, breaks through the play-pretend that Azula is a big guard.

“You don’t need to.”

“I have to!”

“You don’t, but if you want to protect me, you can stay in the garden entrance.”

Get away, says her voice, screaming with her fisted hands.

There is only the fall of a false smile.

She is too young to know better than to obey.

  
  
  


-

  
  
  
  


He is four when Father visits for the first time.

Zuko likes Father, when he first sees him.

Human faces are intriguing, beautiful and bizarre.

Human hands are warm.

Human touches burn.

Zuko is glad he isn’t human, and all that burns is locked away in his throat, and all that fights back has been charred away.

  
  
  


-

  
  
  
  
  


The morning sun is barely risen, and a part of Azula is still wishing she’d stayed sleeping, or at least pretending.

She plays pretend only in secret, though, and she has no choice but to get up, swallow down a yawn and be just like a grown-up.

The family shrine smells of the ashes she wants to make of everything, and the pictures of her forefathers are too many to count, even when her eyes aren’t blurry with sleep half-shaken away.

Portraits of skin unblemished by Agni’s rage, of silky black hair and medals that glint even if only in the paintings.

Statues of dragons and lords and ladies all blending together in the dim grays and yellows of the early hours.

She kneels to them, a part of her brain ready to pounce upon enemies that aren’t there.

The feeling of her palms, tingling with warmth, and the hand on her shoulder.

A grip not as painful as the urge to bite it, as the saliva she swallows back down, the fantasies she sweeps under the rug.

_Sage_.

A word for a herb and a title unearned, mixed together.

Azula’s stomach rumbles, all of a sudden, and she nearly winces.

She is mouldable, but nobody can mold hunger out of her.

She is being weaned out of her dolls and her toys and her childish abbreviations for words, but nobody else has to be a human molded out of animal meat.

“What are you praying for today, Princess?” the sage asks, his hand running up and down her arms.

She could bite him.

They are alone, maybe she should.

Azula bets the nerves would taste nice, as she chewed through them, let the screaming be the music of the feast.

The voice would no longer be nauseatingly sweet.

Soon enough, she would learn the word “condescending”, but, for the moment, it all was just boiled down into being talked to as an animal.

And she stutters, deliberately childish, even before she was able to watch the world in retrospect.

“Today, I’m praying for Mr. Agni! So he gives me the throne!” she says, nodding her head because it is true!

Sparks thrown out of her fingers, because if he gave her the fire, then she will turn the world into kindling.

Something he only lets through with the relief in his eyes, a bit of a glint she can’t help but dislike.

“So when I’m Fire Lord, I’ll be able to do anything I want!” she brags. “And I will be able to eat anyone, and I will be able to set all the training dummies on fire!”

There is no retrospect that time around, for Azula simply can’t wait for the day she is as powerful as the sun she kneels to, the day she is also bathed in red light and handing out discipline.

  
  
  
  


-

  
  
  


The charred ground marks his victory.

The warmth in his throat, tingling and spreading all over him.

Zuko had never felt so alive, until the slap hit.

A different kind of heat, all over his face, down-turning his smile, giving him a grimace instead.

He is ready to ask why, when Mom slaps him once more.

“Bad boy!” she chides, drawing away her hands. “ _Bad_!”

He hisses, but says nothing.

A tail lashing in irritation, the chains all to tight.

All they both need to know is that, even if Zuko wanted to bite her - and he didn’t, he really didn’t! -, he couldn’t.

It’s the first time she has slapped him.

The new kind of touch, the one that burns in a different way.

“Don’t _ever_ do this again.” she mutters.

Nonetheless, the blackened stone sings his victory.

“Why not? It’s firebending, it’s good.”

  
  


“Nobody can see you firebend.” she says, shakes her head once more. “Ever, Zuko.”

  
  


The concern he hears in her voice, facing off against his jaw, begging to close around something.

“I didn’t do anything wrong!” he argues. “It’s my bending, I do what I want with it.”

But, either way, he obeys her, against the whims of the sun, that sung with him only once.

He can’t really force out anything else.

  
  
  
  
  


-

  
  
  
  


Lately, the open-close of the door has been more of a reason for fear than of delight.

Is breaking through the stagnated tedium worth it?

Zuko can’t help but sigh, either way.

Breathing out a plume of smoke, seeing his guard flinch.

“Sorry!” he shouts out through his garbled tongue.

Nothing can distract him from it.

He wants his mom.

He wants Ji-ji, and he wants his mom, and he wants anyone who can make it all a bit less boring, make him feel a tiny bit less insignificant.

The time ticks by, sand falling in the glassy hourglass.

In his vision, but just out of reach enough.

The temptation to take it out, swat it around with his hands.

It doesn’t tick faster, and he hasn’t bothered to threaten time in a long, long time.

The world’s things all blend together, churned into an enormous mush of dull familiaity.

The statues’ golden paint has started fading away, Zuko’s fellow dragons have begun to fall prey to time.

The pictures on the walls, once remembered as golden lines pure and clear, are now dull, barely visible.

He tries to light up his hands during the night, make them shine once more.

His efforts are fruitless, and the world leaves him no option but to stare out into the distant corners of the room.

His life’s play is paused, until someone of any importance can come in, save him from the staring contests with fearful-eyed guards.

Zuko’s long since given up on making them understand they’re also huma.

They can take out their helmets, they can shed their armors.

Zuko can hear them breathe either way, quick and shallow air that smells of filth and smoke, see the way they shudder upon the sight of him.

He can hear them talk, everything and nothing in their words, whenever they think he’s fallen into the pit of sleep.

The sights and smells and sounds make him salivate.

Nothing sounds as fresh and tasty as the bits of skin and flesh that peeks through the armors, hidden just out of temptation’s sight.

He likes the feel of it, food that’s still alive and fresh.

And so, he turns to the guard, lets his tail wag.

Claws stretched out.

Zuko would never hurt anyone, they all know it.

“Can’t we play?” he asks the man, all his honor on his voice. “Please?”

No response.

Only the sword, coming out of the shaft.

“I’m not playing fetch!” he says.

His loud voice is met with inevitable silence, inevitable grimace.

.

.

.

  
  


“I’m the prince, you can’t ignore me!” he exclaims, stretching out chained arms.

Even without the chains, he’s known for very, very long that he shouldn’t run up to people.

They say he is like an old dog.

Learning slowly.

Nonetheless, the discipline is a cloak over his shoulders, a skin of seeming human.

Lessons of honor and of kindness, lessons of trading favors and taking payments.

Discipline.

Like the soldier, refusing to answer.

Like the staring, the licking of his lips.

The thought he pushes down, that makes him queasy.

Of how most people are like moving flesh.

Walking food.

  
  
  


-

  
  


The thought comes to her suddenly, in a brief second of distraction.

Walking food.

Her foot taps on the desk, her pen still scribbles until it runs out of ink.

Her letters dare not turn into gibberish, her messages forced into making sense.

Nonetheless, the thought doesn’t leave her head, even after the first glare stops her foot’s tapping.

Azula knows they are food, but she isn’t big enough to make their fighting back not hurt.

Her instructor’s words wash over her ears, jotted down for later.

She keeps up the answering to every question, resists the urge to flinch away even though she’s yet to get anything wrong.

Turtle-ducks are walking food, and so are tortoise-geese and so are fish-cats.

And so are people.

She licks her lips, wrings her hands.

There are no nails, there are no teeth.

Her mouth still hurts, the dentures still feel foreign and unwelcome on her face.

Nonetheless, she must persist. Keep up the smile, never let down the barrier of resistance.

Her legs are sore, and it feels like years since she’s last been able to run around, to play.

But she is a good child.

Good children do not play.

Good children do not hunt, and good children do not ask why.

The good children are the children who, like Azula, get up and gather their scrolls and pens, make sure it is all tidied up.

They walk with backs straight, down to the gardens.

Good children swallow the saliva in their mouths, hide the jitering in their hands from every passing servant and each little bird, just in case those can tell tales of misdemeanors not there.

They pass hallways and windows taller than they will ever be, even as they imagine themselves stretched out as long as any grownup.

Azula is a good child, even as she finds her mother, back bent in front of the turtle-duck pond, muttering songs under her breath.

Her dress lets out bits of pale, unblemished skin.

There is no thick carapace.

If she tried hard enough, instead of sitting down beside the woman, she could dig into her back with a pen.

Slice it open, flip through layers of skin and fat like pages in a book.

Find out what it is about the smell of food-that-thinks that makes her hungry.

“Hello, mother.” she greets, p rostrated perfectly.

Mother never asks her to smile.

Mother never talks to her, unless she can’t help it.

Nonetheless, ignorance is only an illusion. The eye never leaves Azula, and neither must her mind.

She likes it, having company with quick heartbeats.

Their reflections stand beside one another on the pond.

Blurred reflections, their perfections erased.

The routines, broken by the way her mirror’s image smiles.

Something slips through the cracks, falls through the gaps in Mother’s teeth.

_ ( Real teeth. _

_ Why can’t she ponder over how easily she could pull them out?) _

“Azula, leave.” she says, through a tense jaw, through gritting.

Vulnerable yet cold and soft yet harsh.

“I don’t think I will.” she says. “For you are feeding the ducks, and I am fond of both them and you, mother.”

The disbelief in her eyes, the cracks in the mask all too wide.

Azula gives her another tiny grin.

They gave her new teeth for a reason.

“Please.” Mother sighs. “I just need some time alone, Azula.”

“Company should always be welcome.” she says. “We humans stick together.”

Especially her company.

They’re both princesses, and they should stick together, even if Mother doesn’t quite grasp what that means.

Maybe Azula doesn’t either.

But she can seem to understand, she can smile and make her eyes wrinkle around the corners just right.

Perfect width, perfect length, perfect eye contact.

Perfection.

Azula is the antsy for perfection, and she will not leave, not let her pressure recede.

For she is like the red sun, a silent presence that won’t let herself be slapped away, shooed off, without taking its prey with it.

  
  
  


-

  
  
  
  


Her cheek doesn’t sting for long.

The slap didn’t burn her enough to teach, and only made her more curious, more eager to follow Mother closer.

She is prey-that-fights-back.

Azula likes that.

And thus, she hunts.

Her guide is the hesitant steps, the swats of her hand, the apprehensive brown eyes.

The faltering, a delicacy of uncertainty.

She is as unsure as Azula is, even if not hidden behind curtains and pillars, feeling the rising sun bathe her back and her fingers.

The tall windows that open up to a light sky, the orange still blending into whites and blues in the edges of the horizon.

Agni, rising up a blinding white.

Agni this, Agni that.

Azula will soon be Agni in flesh, once Father has his way with this and that.

Once she follows him along, does what she must and then some.

Something about her presence there feels wrong, nonetheless.

No thoughts can distract her from the fact that Mother is for once unaware of Azula’s presence.

The thought makes her hands tremble, curls her breaths in puffs of smoke.

Her heart is burning up, beating faster than a rabbit-mouse runs.

Tingling fingertips, warmth under her skin begging for fuel, for something to light up.

She is ready to pounce, as Mother falls down and down, passing through hallway after hallway.

A descent through a thousand curtains of red, until all windows are gone.

Until the air goes cold, and the only light comes from burning oil lamps.

She can feel them, leading up to a room.

The first door in a long time, in the first place of the palace that she’d never known.

How did they even get there, a part of her wonders.

The catacomb’s red door.

Wide, locked, guarded tightly.

A single man, hidden behind his armor like his flesh is a treasure, like he is more than kindling for the glorious fire of his nation.

“Are you sure you want to, my Highness?” asks his voice, muffled through the mask, holding onto his sword.

Not a bender.

Just someone who knows what lies behind the door.

Just someone useful, then.

“Come in with me, if you think he is so badly behaved today.” her mother says. “He likes playing fetch with you, or so he’s told me.”

The man shudders, but then sighs, rubs the back of his neck.

Unprofessional, Azula thinks, if only to herself.

“Fine.”

The door creaks open, and she sneaks a peek behind the two of them.

Her breaths are quick, the thunder in her chest sending her insane.

Maybe-

Maybe Azula has gone insane, for the world becomes, in a brief moment, fully still.

She had never seen anything like it before.

It didn’t seem to see her, not as she hid behind the pillar even more, until she could barely see it.

Its body was bent and twisted, the limbs far too short for the long, serpentine mass that curled around itself.

The similarity was clear, engraved in the statues staring down upon that fated meeting.

But-

Azula couldn’t help but notice that, despite the dragon’s body, that thing - whatever it was - had a face just like hers.

The world is still and silent.

The human-skinned dragon smiles, his tail wagging despite the chains.

“Hello, Zuko.” Mother says. “Has my boy been good, lately?”

Mother called him her boy.

She called him “Zuko”.

And Azula’s hands are trembling, tingling with fire just right under the surface, begging to burn the thing.

Char away its- _his_? - blemishes, its peeling, scabbed skin.

Its snaking, long body, twisting serpentine, hovering near to touch her mother.

Mother lets him close.

Mother doesn’t touch him, but she doesn’t tell him off either.

He just smiles up at her, rolls onto his belly.

“Good boy, Zuko.” she congratulates. “I have a new theater scroll. Would you like to read along?”

He looks her age, and his face looks like hers.

Eyes of molten gold, hair black as petroleum.

Skin untouched by the sun and the silk alike.

“Please, mom!” its tail wags, skin that breaks into rashes almost like shed scales batting against the floor.

And Azula’s world drops like her stomach.

For the abomination-

It is her sibling.

The reason they plucked her nails, burnt the tips of each digit while they held her down and strapped her mouth.

The reason the palace doctor put her on the bed and forced her open to take out each and every baby tooth.

The reason she is blessed with fire that burns white and as hot as the light of midday’s sun.

The red sun is rising, her hands are tingling, and Azula’s eyes are wide, the free-flowing thoughts of curses and blessings leaving her mouth agape.

  
  
  


-

  
  
  
  


“ _Sit_ , then.” Mom commands, raising up the scroll in her hand.

He goes to his corner, and she goes to hers, just far enough from him.

Sitting on the ground, smiling wide and with something he can’t quite name as kindness, for Zuko has never seen many people other than his mother.

“Good boy.” She compliments him with a short clap.

His longing for new stories spans every second, a beggar’s plea for new things, new false voices lighting up the room with brand new words, giving the world fresh breaths of life.

When someone talks, when new things are told, the details of the world stop seeming rusted and dulled into ugliness in his eyes.

His tail wags lazy, and he purrs softly, kneading inch-long claws on the cold tile floor.

Scratching as his imagination flees from him, as tales unfold in front of his wide eyes.

“What’s going to happen next?” he asks, a question unanswered, unspoken lessons of patience in every water break.

He can’t help but try to ask, and Mom can’t help it but ignore him.

His interruption is not supposed to happen, but nonetheless he marches into battle waving it, knowing and enjoying the feeling of being far enough for no hands to touch, for no grips to burn hot.

Touch is pain.

That’s why mom knows better than to touch him.

Zuko isn’t human, not in the way anyone else is, even behind their skull-masks.

Mother tells, and his mind keeps on drifting, in and out in the blinks of an eye or two.

“I wish I could have a mask. Like the blue spirit.” he tells her, in one of the gaps between chapters.

She ignores him.

Sometimes, he thinks she’s reading for herself.

It’s alright, though, as long as he can hear it.

The unfurling scrolls and unfolding tales.

Blue spirits and their sisters, birds that talked and turtles that painted.

Something that feels almost like the world outside should.

Nonetheless, a part of Zuko wants to see the red sun all those people in his stories talk about, even if through a theater mask.

  
  
  
  


-

  
  
  
  
  


The thought does not leave her mind, the trail she’d taken only once already a memory to her muscles.

Azula knows it to be an impulse, but her feet nonetheless beg to carry her there, gaze upon it once more.

Upon him.

Curiosity beats fear with little fight, when you have fire tingling under your skin.

Notes taken with unusual lack of thought, her mind begging for something else.

Her focus is far, far away from all that.

She wants to know what it feels like.

What it truly is- was, maybe?

Not something meant to last for long, that she is sure of.

Training and classes, classes and training.

She nearly falls, nearly collapses during one of the exercises.

Her thoughts are drifting, even during punishment for the below-average form.

It’s midday when she gets out of her training, decides that there are better things than to ponder over lessons and lunch.

The sun is warm on her skin, singing along with her boiling blood, her simmering bones.

Agni’s whim guides her out, her eyes narrowed in focus.

A darkened face, she realizes.

Nonetheless, she can’t care enough to smile genuinely enough.

She is seven and small enough to sneak in while the guards swap shifts, trade spots.

He is her little brother, in a twisted way.

Blood of her blood, blood that will someday stain her hands.

The blood of curiosity, the feeling of a piece that didn’t quite feel like it was ever missed.

Jittery hands, burnt fingertips tingling.

Hiding behind pillars, just waiting.

Waiting, biding her time.

Azula hangs around, swipes the ground with her boots.

Breaths held in, only huffed out when the shift is traded.

Unlocked room, opened before her eyes, a place she can slip through with no help.

A temple stained red.

The pale, splotchy red tiles are covered in nicks and scratches, places where claws stronger than steel have sunken into.

Red walls, golden engravings long since turned into dull, shapeless figures.

Dragon statues littering the corners, coiling around the columns.

They are a false gold, coppery and rusty underneath.

Burning incense fills the air, and the pupil-less eyes of the snakes in that pit all stare at her.

What is it worth, being seen?

Azula stands, perfectly prostrated yet wide-eyed, her stillness sudden and not quite deliberate.

For it-

For he looks just like her.

They have the same sharp nose, the same lips and the same cheeks.

Even though his is uncombed, falling over his starved face in long, greasy locks, they have the same cascade of dark hair.

Even though he has the body of an animal, the same face belongs to them both.

The same unblinking, unnaturally wide golden eyes.

The same breaths, held onto by both of them.

“Who are you?” he asks, sudden and loud enough to nearly make Azula flinch.

Nearly, she reminds herself, straightening up and breathing out.

At her delay, his head tilts to the side.

One eye blinks before the other, and he licks the air, in the way Azula was taught to never do.

Breaths.

_In._

_ Out. _

“I am princess Azula.” she declares. “And I have come here in terms of-”

“You’re not a princess.” he snickers. “Mom is the princess! She told me she was the only one!”

A long, thin tail gives an irritated bat against the floor.

It is lizard-like, but the skin is pale and smooth.

  
  


“Your mom is also my mom.” she says. “I-”

  
  


And he interrupts her again, leaves her fuming as he comes far too close, far too fast.

And-

The “Zuko” flicks his tongue at her once more, tasting the air.

“You smell like mom.” he declares, and then sits back on his unnaturally long, serpentine body. “I don’t believe you, though.”

“You should.” she says. “I’m your princess.”

“Oh, please, I don’t own any princesses. I don’t need any princesses!”

“Not even mom?”

“You know what I mean.” he says.

This time, the way he flicks his tongue is… childlike.

Like a servant child that doesn’t quite know what or who she is.

“Do you even know what a princess is?” she asks, instead. “Because I can - and will - teach you what I am.”

“You’re a princess, even if only in your own mind.” he says.

“I am.” she claps, slowly. “Congratulations.”

Any intimidation she could’ve had because of his looks is mitigated by the fact that, if they truly are siblings, Azula has the possession of all that could be passed off as a brain.

He stops in consideration .

His brow no longer creases.

“... Thanks.”

And Azula bursts out laughing.

The Zuko’s head tilts to the side.

Azula’s hands drop to her knees, all gracefulness abandoned for a brief, brief second.

“What are you laughing at?”

“You- You weren’t joking?”

“Why would I joke? I’m an honest, honourable little spirit!”

Laughter sometimes comes in along with overwhelming headaches, Azula finds out that day.

“You’re not a spirit.” she says. “You’re my _brother_.”

  
  
  
  


-

  
  
  
  
  


Spirits and siblings tend to have one thing in common, dear reader:

They worm their way through favors, work in a trade of deals.

And Azula’s spirit-sibling is like any other spirit, and any other sibling.

“You like theater, don’t you?” she asks him.

“Of course!” his tail wags, and he turns to look up at her once more, as she carbonates one of the incense sticks on the shrine.

“I can give you a scroll.” she says, wiping ash on the ground.

“ _If_?”

“If you, dear brother, agree to act as my brave steed!” she says.

. . . 

“I want a piggyback ride, dumb-dumb.”

  
  
  
  


-

  
  
  
  


The visits grow more frequent.

Azula brings him good things.

She brings shiny new scrolls and enticing new words, and she brings him combs and glinting stones that he can hold all night long, purring until the sun rises once more.

Mother brings him stories of the outside lands, and she brings him masks and silks he can’t really touch, but can gaze and pretend.

He likes those visits.

He likes the way his life, for a few moments, no longer seems to have been paused.

But there is something more.

Infrequent, unpredictable.

Visits that don’t bring, but take.

_ Father. _

Father is a prince, and his visits create a miniature of the court, a ball with nothing but the two of them, locked in a dance of disgusted eyes and hot hands, of anger that no longer is one-sided.

The reward for his obedience is raw air against open burns, is seeping fluid and scabbing itches.

Zuko's Father has been visiting more and more often.

The bruises are growing, his jaw is always aching.

There is no good touch, and there is no fighting back in Zuko's world.

If only he could bend properly, if only he were like Azula.

If only his fire weren't a broken thing, barely more than a sense in the back of his mind, an ache deep in his throat, a plume of angry smoke he’s swallowed down all his life.

_ If only. _

  
  
  
  


-

  
  
  
  
  
  


Azula only tries practicing her firebending on Zuko once.

His fire is broken, he’d told her.

She took the bait he’d given unintentionally, one day.

While his fire was broken, his jaws…

Weren’t.

Before she could really flinch away, his jaws locked around her wrist, teeth sinking deep into the back of her hand.

Two layers of punctures, when he finally pulls away, l icking his lips.

Azula doesn't cry, and neither does he.

She doesn't have any ducts, any space for tears.

Only a wobbling mouth and a bleeding hand and the smoldering, growling mass in the corner of the room.

She doesn't have any apologies, either.

She just has herself, leaving the room with a bloodied hand shoved into a red pocket.

Drifting back into the real world, out of the liminal hallways and into the ruby-red passages of the normal palace.

The red sun is setting outside, painting the sky the cruel orange of the droughts she never hasn't known.

Being looked at back, by a thing that fears nothing, not even teeth and not even consequences.

  
  
  


-

  
  
  
  


Time doesn’t seem to pass, even as Zuko molts over and over.

Fights swept under the tiles, scars explained away, fading back like the golden paint on the walls.

Tales of outside and a growing hoard of books Azula allows him to keep.

She says she doesn’t like them, but Zuko knows she just wants to be nice, sometimes.

He purrs, rests his head on a pillow of scrolls, and shivers behind his shrine whenever darkness falls outside.

As far as he is concerned, the cold wind won’t ever get to whip against his unmarred face, and as far as he is concerned he will never need a blanket.

He only has his eyes, opening and closing in the night, and the purring filling his ears, the imagination that runs wild that maybe he will someday not be all alone.

But people don't purr, and dragons don't exist outside his room.

Good thing Zuko is nothing but Zuko.

No prince, no abomination.

Only a child, long and serpentine but with a mouth that smiles and a face just like his twin sister’s.

So, he purrs, kneads claws into granite, and closes his eyes for the night.

For the red sun is gone and he knows better than to stay awake.

  
  
  
  


-

  
  
  
  


The red temple’s paintings have long since blended into one single, mushy thing in Zuko’s brain.

He wants to know what the real sun is like.  Mom never really talks to him about it.

She seems as stuck there as he is, more often than not.

He wants to know what a blue spirit is, and what people look like under the guard masks.

Azula says nobody truly looks like the two of them.

All people are different, not that he would know.

Zuko knows Azula lies, but he has no option but to trust her.

He doesn’t have a way to prove otherwise, he only has hands with talons large enough to grip every little answer.

Whenever the guards are around, she hides behind the shrine, with the nice jade-encrusted pillows and all the other precious things in the world.

There, they hiss at each other, words in the warm dialect he shouldn’t be human enough to talk.

“You grew.” he notes.

“Good evening, sibling.” she says.

He sits down, stomps on his tail, curls up.

Azula’s limbs are bent all wrong, her legs folding up the opposite way, her arms too long and her body too short. Something about the way the clothes warp and bend around her is funny.

She looks funny, maybe because she stretched up tall and not long.

“You have grown too.” she notes, glances at his curled-up form, and s its down with him.

Zuko smiles.

“Anything new from outside?” he asks, teeth clattering against one another.

Human tongues slip off of him badly.  Two rows of teeth, too little space for words to form out of.

“Not much.” she says. 

There isn’t ever much.

He wonders if it’s like the temple, outside.

So he rolls onto the floor, lays down a little.

Stretches out to a full length of something far too long to look even remotely like Azula, curling around her but never actually touching.

“Can you tell me about the war?”

He wants it to continue, because the war is a nice “ _talking point”,_ and, those days, Zuko didn't get to have a lot of those in his hoard.

He is already nine, and he needs to talk to people, even if his guards never answer and even if the things everyone says might not be true.

“Uncle Fatso and Lu Ten are still on the field, but Father doesn’t think either will last for much longer. I think he’s being hopeful.”

“Why hopeful?”

His head against the tile, hands stretching out.

Zuko’s never learned to expect touch, but his hands reach out nonetheless.

Clawed talons, five of them.  He thinks he has Father’s hands, even if they aren't any threat of heat.

“Because he will get crowned fire lord, dumb-dumb.” she says. “And, when he is firelord, the war will stop.”

“Then there will be nothing to talk about.” he notes, dejected.

“There will be peace.” she says. “Order and advancements, under the reign of our nation. United, we will be a glorious hoard, a single nation of gemstones.”

She sounds really sure of it.

“Are you gonna be Fire Lord, after Father?” he asks, even though he isn’t sure there _can_ be peace under Azula.

She preens under the attention.

“As long as everything goes according to plan, yes.”

There is a brief second for him to stay there, deep in his thoughts.

The tile is cold against his cheek, comforting in the stuffy heat of the room.

Thoughts rarely get to come out loud.

So, he closes his hands, unclenches them when his claws dig in too deep.

“Can I be Fire Lord too?” he looks up at her, pretends his tail doesn't start to wag.

Azula laughs.

He hisses, mostly to himself, because he is honourable and honourable people don’t hiss.

Her laughter soon turns into an awkward, wheezing sound, overlapped with his incessant hissing, because he won’t stop while she won’t either.

“Zuzu… You’re a _monster_.” she says, wipes a play-pretend tear from her eye. “If only you were a smart one at it!”

  
  
  
  


-

  
  
  


Zuko’s skin sheds, layers upon layers of joint pains and skin that’s given up on him.

The room is starting to feel smaller, and he misses not having his guards flinch.

He’s long since forgotten the names of anyone who wasn’t scared of him.

Not even Mom visits for that long anymore.

His body is far too long not to wrap itself around the people, who seem to be growing smaller and smaller every day.

The shrine is vacant, pieces of it burnt from his feeble attempts at lighting up the offerings once more. Incense that’s long since lost its smell, now reduced to charred little sticks. Scratched-up fabric, torn by his unchecked talons.

His pile of scrolls, hidden behind all of it, a hoard of things nobody ever told him not to keep.

Azula’s taught him how to read a few of the kanji in his favorite play, but she is small and impatient and he doesn’t think anyone can know everything, anyways.

Not even Lala.

These days, the chains are tight.

The leash around his neck keeps him tied down, doesn’t let him purr anymore.

The sun passes by and he can’t help but not want to wake up, because all Agni does is leave him tired despite doing nothing.

It is all red, blurring before his eyes, closing and opening like something will change if he just waits long enough.

Red and red and red.

Blurring in front of his eyes, as he closes them every time the sun sets.

Red swimming in the corners of his mind.

The unpleasant reminder that he isn’t all alone.

  
  
  
  


-

  
  
  


Maybe she feels bitter, she thinks one day, staring at her hands.

Opening and closing them.

Maybe she feels lonely, if bitter doesn’t grasp it, like her hands grasp at nothing.

Azula has no use for those words and for those worlds inside her head.

The other worlds, in her imagination, where there would be people for Azula to call her friends.

People other than her instructors, people who are something other than warm hands and tantalizing flesh.

People other than Zuzu, who may not look like it but is a person, a person always waiting for her.

The only creature in the world with enough time for Azula.

Chained down, his back to her, even as he twists his neck to flash her a smile.

Identical faces, words traded for favors.

No more piggyback rides, and no real firebending practice, or even mentions of the art.

But Zuzu is good with voice coaching, and he can always help her with her evil laugh and he can always show her, almost if by intuition, how to bite into a turtle-duck's neck in the least painful way.

In another world, they would be his favorite animal, she knows.

But they’re in a world where turtle-ducks taste good, and where Azula only has him as her friend.

  
  
  
  
  


-

  
  
  
  


There is no if, there is no but.

There is only the feeling that she’s got to do it, that she has gotten good enough to know in the skin and in the flesh what it feels like to be there.

In the throne room.

The expanses so glorious where Father brought her to display her firebending to the Fire Lord himself, the red tiles and the gold.

Oh, the _jewels_. The shine just out of one's well-used sight.

Silent feet, the glorious feeling of having no bell around her neck, nothing to keep her from it.

It feels like her fate, the silence broken only by her hushed, muffled breaths.

It is Father’s meeting, but it is also her place to gaze, wide, unblinking eyes staring upon a world of grownups.

The grownups live in a world showered in the jewels of blood splatters, slathered with burn cream, a world bathed in a fading red light, surrounded by dark corners she blends into easily.

Cousin Lu Ten is dead.

She is delighted, for she knows what Father will want next.

Even she, ignorant to humanity, knows the dead can’t be heirs.

The most valuable people are the ones who can still have heirs, not like Uncle Iroh.

She could be made crown princess, soon enough.

And so, she held back the fire tingling in her fingertips, the feeling of the red sun fading away, leaving her alone with nothing but Father’s disrespect.

Words washing over her ears, the world slowing down even as her heartbeat runs faster and faster.

“My Lord, I have been blessed with spirit-children, and they are the only heirs left in this family.”

The flames burn brighter.

It tastes like smoke, when she flicks out her tongue.

The laughter comes out, not from her but from the Fire Lord.

His breath is billowing plumes, the sound is grating against her ears, making her want to tear through his throat.

Watch his eyes as she took out the little parrot’s box inside it, made sure he wouldn't ever repeat any more death sentences.

So, Azula holds herself close, so close she feels like her skin is going to crumble in her own hands.

“Ozai, my dearest boy…” he punctuates, breathes in. 

She can see him wipe a tear from his eye.

“You want me to crown an _eleven year old ?_ ”

And Ozai says:

“I think my brother is much more useful on the battlefield. I have the heir, and I have the voice to carry us onward.”

And Azula’s heart dares not stop beating, even as the road of silence stretches out before them.

  
  


.

  
  


.

  
  


.

  
  
  


“Do you think I don’t know what you did to get your nephew out of the way?”

Oh, the fury.

That is how it hits them.

  
  
  


.

  
  


.

  
  


.

  
  
  


“I should teach you what it feels like to have your children be pitted against each other like _animals_.”

  
  
  
  


-

  
  
  
  


And just like that, the nights slips away from under her control, and before she can notice, it is the next day.

Azula rising up before the sun, like she had never slept.

There is no surprise in her face, as the guards tell her to follow along.

The trail is familiar, the pillars and windows passing by in a blur.

She won't remember any of that.

All she will remember is the throne room, the red tiles and the red walls all a receptacle for the blood soon to spill.

Only the Agni Kai cloak, wrapped around thin, bony shoulders.

So oversized it drags on the floor, even as she stands up her tallest, even as she smiles with all the glory in the world.

Trembles held back, bile spitting up from her empty stomach, as she once more sees him.

Zuzu's face, as familiar as her reflexion in the mirror, is twisted in furious terror, his sharp teeth gritted, the grimace fitting like a well-worn mask, like the theater he'd once loved.

Pushing back against his chains, claws digging into the tile, scraping as a guard drags him closer, unnaccepting of the end soon to come.

Azula does not dare look at anyone's eyes.

Crowned by flames, Grandfather sits in his throne of red. 

She will hear the tap-tap-tap of his foot for all the nights she has left.

That is her power, that is her destiny, unspoken but still said in every held-in breath.

Azula has earned it, their eyes all on her, not only watching but truly _seeing_.

She has earned the right to burn brighter and redder than the sun.

Guided by Mother's hushed sobbing, muffled through her pale, trembling hands, and by her Father's words - warmer than any hands - Azula moves to put her brother down.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> please give me criticism!  
> im 200k words in on my writing ~ journey ~ and i feel like i haven't gotten far enough yet!


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